25 Years Later…We Still Must Share The Story

Twenty-five years.

It almost doesn’t seem possible.

On September 11, 2001, I woke up early, got ready for the day and headed out to meet a client.

It was an ordinary morning.

Until it wasn’t.

Within hours, the entire world had changed.

Planes crashed into the World Trade Center.

Another struck the Pentagon.

And United Flight 93 came down in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

Thousands of lives were lost.

Families were changed forever.

And millions of us watched something unfold that we knew, even in that moment, we would remember for the rest of our lives.

We remember where we were.

We remember who we were with.

We remember watching the television in disbelief.

We remember the confusion.

The fear.

The anger.

The sadness.

And we remember what happened afterward.

People came together.

Strangers helped strangers.

First responders ran toward unimaginable danger while everyone else was trying to escape it.

American flags seemed to be everywhere.

For a little while, our differences didn’t seem quite as important.

We were simply Americans.

I Wrote About This Nine Years Ago

In 2017, I wrote an article titled Share The Story…We Will Never Forget.

At the time, September 11th was only sixteen years behind us.

I ended that article with a warning:

Don’t let 9/11 become a distant memory.

I wrote that a generation was coming that would never have experienced that fateful moment and that it was our responsibility to share the story with them.

Nine years have passed since I wrote those words.

And twenty-five years have now passed since 9/11.

That generation isn’t coming anymore.

They’re already here.

There are adults today who weren’t alive on September 11, 2001.

There are parents raising children who have no personal memory of that day.

To them, 9/11 isn’t a memory.

It’s history.

Something they learned about in school.

Something they’ve seen in documentaries.

Something they’ve watched in old news footage.

And that’s precisely why those of us who remember it have an obligation to keep telling the story.

History Gives Us Dates. People Give Those Dates Meaning.

A history book can tell you what happened.

It can tell you the names of the buildings.

The flight numbers.

The timeline.

The number of lives lost.

But history can’t completely explain what it felt like to live through that day.

That’s where we come in.

We can tell our children and grandchildren where we were when we first heard.

We can tell them about the phone calls we made.

The people we worried about.

The silence that followed.

The skies without airplanes.

The photographs taped to walls as families desperately searched for loved ones.

The firefighters, police officers, paramedics and ordinary citizens who demonstrated extraordinary courage.

We can tell them about the people aboard Flight 93 who fought back.

We can tell them about the days and weeks afterward when a wounded country came together.

Those aren’t simply historical facts.

Those are human stories.

And stories are how memories survive generations.

“Never Forget” Requires Something From Us

Every September 11th, we see the words:

Never Forget.

But remembering isn’t passive.

If we truly mean never forget, then we have to do something with those memories.

We have to share them.

Tell your children.

Tell your grandchildren.

Tell them where you were.

Tell them what you saw.

Tell them how you felt.

Tell them about the people who never came home.

Tell them about the heroes who ran toward danger.

Tell them why, twenty-five years later, you still stop when you see the images.

Because eventually there will be fewer of us who remember September 11th firsthand.

Another twenty-five years will pass.

Then another.

And someday, nobody alive will be able to say:

“I remember that day.”

But the stories can remain.

That’s how legacy works.

We tell the stories entrusted to us so the next generation can carry them forward.

In 2017, I asked people not to allow September 11th to become a distant memory.

Nine years later, I’m asking again.

Except now the responsibility feels even greater.

Twenty-five years have passed.

The world has changed.

A new generation has arrived.

Share the story.

Share what you remember.

Share what happened.

Share why it matters.

So that twenty-five, fifty or one hundred years from now, someone who wasn’t there will still understand.

We said we would never forget.

Let’s make sure they don’t either.

— Rob Anspach